Calgary Had The Cowboys, So Here Come The Indians

Emirates SkyCargo’s Pradeep Kumar manager of revenue optimization and Prakash Nair get ready to rodeo.

Taking TIACA Calgary Farther

     At Calgary last week as The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) held its 22nd gathering, air cargo leaders from around the world arrived armed with hour by hour appointments and chock ‘o block agendas, driven by ultra tight schedules a long way from home set up inside blackberries or jotted down on the TIACA program.
     Trade shows are insular events at least in predicting where most people will be while attending.
     Meetings and discussion groups and a bit of partying goes on all over the place leading up to a couple of big dinners and in the case of the Calgary show, a final hoedown evening with some professional riding and roping and trick riders from a local “Wild West” troupe.

Prakash and Ram Menen greeted and took a break with Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier upstairs at the SkyCargo display stand.

The “Rodeo” as preamble to a grand and sumptuous grand finale banquet took place right next to the trade show in a big arena that is attached to the main hall.
     As non-stop rain continued to pound Calgary, attendees were grateful for that while quickly ducking in and out of nearby hotels changing from business costumes into to jeans and western style straw hats as the night began.
     A peculiarity of the modern world, almost as fast as the Calgary rodeo swept by with fireworks and pretty girls on horseback and bull riding and wranglers, attendees departing the trade show area en route to dinner, filed past an empty hall that all had attended for the past days.
     In little more than two hours a miniature cargo village had been swept away by a brigade of workers who left little more than some overhead printed signs and packed crates stacked neatly at the ready for their next big opening at another trade opus elsewhere.
     Most agreed that TIACA Calgary despite almost no foot traffic, in fact had delivered the same result as every other show.
     Today trade shows include great networking, beautiful people and displays, and little in the way of an outside audience from any other industry or discipline other than air cargo.
     The thought was that if maybe a shipper wandered into this select enclave, he or she could have named their own price just to grant appointments.
     We kept thinking:
     “These are sincere nice people who have traveled far and spent lots of money to get something.”
     But that is another story.
     One individual who ventured out beyond the safe confines despite being highly in demand everywhere else at TIACA 2006 was Ram Menen SDVP Emirates SkyCargo.
     Ram spent most of the morning during his last full day in Calgary at the University of Calgary Haskayne School of Business enlightening a class of undergraduate students in fundamentals of the air cargo and transportation art.
     The audience was attentive, asked questions and took notes continuing the dialogue for some time during an open buffet sandwich luncheon after the hour and a half encounter.
     Utilizing a balky Power Point system Ram engaged the group opening a new world to the next generation while patiently walking these students through air cargo 101.
     In an effort to get as close as possible, Ram would often lean forward in a folksy manner while punctuating his comments with gentle warnings and “inside” observations gained through a lifetime of transportation service.
     He spoke of various aspects of business while explaining how the logistics chain works best, drawing big pictures in easy to follow diagrams, offering a road map to success in a basic, yet effective manner. Again and again he told the gathering to “keep it simple’ as a most important lesson learned when they finally exit the academic world and continued on into the “real world.”
     Later students we talked to were upbeat if not understated which is common on any campus we think.
     Interestingly everybody we spoke to in this young city in western Canada is very aware of where and what Dubai is, even naming new world landmarks such as the Burj Al Arab five star hotel.
     “Understand you have to pay a toll just to get in and look at that place,” a young undergraduate said.
     “Most of us really learned something,” another said.
     “Didn’t understand that shipping goods by air, and by air and sea, and finally by sea in a patterned plan can realize both supply and widen profits.”
     “I am a marketing major and think the air cargo business is both exciting and quite challenging,” said another.
     Local entrepreneur Richard Haskayne who hit the big time in oil and gas and apparently decided to give something back created the Haskayne School of Business.
     Haskayne is considered a repository for the best and brightest, graduating about 500 annually.
     But as the University of Calgary celebrates its 60th year in 2006, air cargo the biggest show in town this week, dropped in to pay a call and everybody was lifted.
     “I just loved doing it,” Ram said.